May 18, 2006.

Thе Chrоnіclеs of Atlantis - Pаrt Onе

Fool's errand. Isn't that what they called insane, futile misadventures like the one I'd gotten myself into?

I looked up at the starlit sky, and found the crescent moon slung low like a scythe and half shadowed by wispy clouds. I oriented myself towards the north, for no other reason than the Bоy Scоυts had taught me that this was a good idea when alone in the woods like I was.

Only I wasn't in the woods. This was the tropics, and the lush vegetation around me seemed to be perspiring as much as I was this humid, heavy night. Big spiky leaves shot out at me at every step, vines snaked across my feet, and large, dewy fronds brushed my arms as I made my onward. Animals called out to each other in the distance, and I comforted myself - or maybe lied to myself - that they were only parrots or adorable little monkeys, or some other essentially harmless jungle beast.

I thought about turning back many times. I could wait out the rest of the week at the place where the boat had dropped me. I had provisions, I could live by the shore until the guide returned in his little wooden boat with the chipped red paint. I could go back to Nеw Yоrk, write my story, fill my editor's head with romantic tales of adventures in the Sоυth Pаcіfіc, he'd never know the difference. The trouble was, I would know the difference. I had come all this way, faced many dangers and difficulties just to get here, had been forced to bribe my way into near bankruptcy just to get someone to drop me off on this island - how could I not go forward now? Even if it were just for my own curiosity, I had to see for myself. I had to know if the legends about this place were true.

That thought steadied me as I trudged on through the thickness of the night, stopping every once in a while to listen, to peer into the darkness around me for any signs of life. I shifted my backpack to ease the burden on my back and moved on, hoping this path would lead to something. Hoping beyond hope that the legend was true, that this place, this speck of rock jutting out of the ocean, was really what the locals claimed it was. Thе Lоst City. Atlantis. Whatever you wanted to call it, my source had sworn to me he'd been to this place and that it was a wonder beyond anything a man could imagine. Now if only, if only, it were true.

There are women there, he had said. The most beautiful women you've ever seen, or even imagined. They are like some sort of lost tribe, living in seclusion in their own society. They are fearless and fierce, they are strong and brave and incredibly beautiful. They want no part of the outside world, and they don't live by any rules I would recognize. They are like the Amazons of ancient legend, and their secret has been kept for thousands of years.

This I had to see.

Up until now, til this very night, I guess I had never really believed that I would find anything here. It had been just an alluring goose chase, fodder for a great story that would please my editor and maybe get me a raise. I even had the story all planned out in my head - I'd detail the remoteness of this small island, the wide, toothless smiles of the locals who told me their stories of the place, and how much I felt like a 1920's adventurer traipsing through the jungle in search of a lost city. But tonight, moving through the flora with the grace of a water buffalo, I abandoned all of it. There was something about this place, some kind of presence I felt. As though a thousand pairs of eyes were watching me, judging me, and letting me pass - for now.

I stopped suddenly, and froze in mid step. Gingerly I put my foot down and crouched in the underbrush, peering through a gap in the foliage. There, in the distance, a light glowed. A fire. In the distance, a fire blazed, contained and controlled. I parted the leaves and flattened myself onto my stomach, feeling my heart pound against my chest. I fumbled with my binoculars and focused on the flame, casting around for any other signs of life. The flame was coming from a large round urn, an ornate half-sphere sitting low on the ground. My heart leapt and I felt dizzy, with excitement and apprehension and not a little fear.

I could make out the surroundings. There were other fires, all from similar urns, all placed around a sort of open platform. Columns rose at four corners, and when I peered closer I could see that it was a kind of balcony. It was an outdoor extension of a larger structure, a large terrace that reminded me of a Greek temple. Gооd Lоrd, this couldn't be happening. Was the humidity making me hallucinate? Had I really just stumbled upon -

Then I saw her. She came through the darkness near the back of the terrace and moved into the light cast by the fires. She moved gracefully, on silent feet, towards the very edge of the platform. She paused there, looking out into the darkness, as though looking right at me.

A bolt of fear shot through me but I couldn't look away. Her figure filled my field of vision through the glasses, and it was enough to take the very breath out of me.

She was tall and lithe, with long limbs and even longer dark hair that fell to her waist. She was exquisitely beautiful; even in the dim light I could see the firmness of her jaw, the slender line of her aquiline nose, and the penetrating intensity of her eyes. And she was nude, save for an ornate belt of what looked like gold chains slung across her hips.

Her breasts were perfect, the kind I didn't think existed on real women. As though sculpted under Michelangelo's hand, they swelled out from her body in divine symmetry, rounded and heavy as they rested against her ribs. Her waist tapered in and the curve of her hips balanced the size of her chest perfectly. She stood completely still, one long, well-defined leg posed slightly off to the side, almost in a fashion model's pose. It accentuated the lines of her body and the unmistakable curves that only a woman has. Her feet were bare, except for the merest glint of a bracelet around her ankle, like that of the belt across her hips.

My mouth went dry as I stared at her. I had a camera in my backpack, I knew that I should at least try to get a photo of her, but I couldn't look away. I had never seen such a beautiful woman, so calmly, easily beautiful without a hint of shame or self-consciousness. Who was this magnificent woman? My mind raced with a thousand questions. What was she doing out here on this island in the middle of the sea? What was this place she lived in? And why did she look so fully dressed wearing nothing but a few strands of gold?

At that moment she turned from her repose and I felt like crying out for her not to go. Don't go back inside, I thought urgently. But in a second she was gone, drifting back into the shadows from whence she came.

I knew I had to go down to her. I had to find her, try to talk to her. I started to shimmy backwards so I could raise myself up onto my knees.

And it was then that I felt the tip of the spear digging into my back.

Continue to Part 2

by Jаkе Cаmpаnа

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